Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said that while the ongoing lockdown has led to economic losses, no price can be set on the lives of Indians. Addressing the nation, he announced that the government has decided to extend the lockdown till May 3, as per the suggestions from state governments. He said that local bodies will ensure that the lockdown is followed strictly in the coming days.

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“Despite so many efforts, the spread of coronavirus continues to be a major challenge for governments across the world. We have held discussions with all the state governments to decide how to continue the fight, Most states have recommended that we should extend the lockdown. Keeping in mind all the suggestions, we have decided to extend the lockdown to May 3,” he said. 

“We need to follow the same rules as we have been so far. I request all the Indians to ensure that the virus is not spread in new areas,” the prime minister said. 

PM Modi said that India did not wait for the problem to get big. He said as soon as we saw the problem, we took adequate steps to deal with it. 

“It is not right to compare our situation with other countries but I must say that India is still in a better situation than some of the biggest countries in the world. About a month ago,many countries were at par with India in number of cases. By now, they have seen a hike of 25 to 30 per cent rise in cases,” he said.

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The prime minister said that we all are aware about the global situation of coronavirus and everyone has seen how India tackled the situation. 

“We had started the screening of people arriving from other countries even before a single case was reported in the country. Before the number reached 100, we had made it compulsory for all the foreign travellers to remain in two-week quarantine,” he said. 

PM Modi lauded the efforts of Indians and said that sacrifices made by them allowed Indians to reduce the losses due to coronavirus.

The total number of confirmed cases of novel coronavirus in India climbed to 10,363, with 1,211 new cases and 31 deaths in the last 24 hours, as per the data published by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Sunday. Of these 8,988 are active cases of COVID-19, 1,035 individuals have recovered and discharged from the hospital, one person migrated to another country and 339 people succumbed to the disease.